Back in the days, the four dancing dots were so ubiquitous to Google.
As the representation of Google Assistant when it's processing users' query, Google Assistant was once a jewel in Google's crown. It was the AI software that was supposed to be the company's foray to mobile and smart home. But years later, the company started giving up on it.
While Google Assistant does have its strengths, it also has a bunch of weaknesses
Since the rise of generative AI, pioneered by OpenAI when it launched ChatGPT, Google as a rival was lagging.
And so did the development of Google Assistant, which seemed to become a side project to Google.
But this time, that is no longer the case.
Ahead of its Made by Google 2024 event, the company announced in a blog post that Assistant is sticking around.
Google Assistant is a virtual assistant software that is primarily designed to automation and mobile devices.
Using AI, it can engage in two-way conversations,
Debuted in 2016, it uses AI to engage with users in two-way conversations. And after a period of exclusivity on the Google Pixel smartphones, Google Assistant was introduced to other Android devices starting in February 2017, including third-party smartphones and Android Wear (Wear OS), and was released as a standalone app on the iOS operating system in May 2017.
With it, users can help users with answering questions, schedule events and alarms, adjust hardware settings on the user's device, show information from the user's Google account, play games, and more.
Then came the generative AI trend, and that Google was so focused with its Bard project, that Assistant was kind of neglected.
When Bard became Gemini, Google had planned to replace Assistant with it on Android devices.
The thing is, Gemini already lives inside the Google main app, which means giving Assistant on mobile its own taste of Gemini kind of redundant.
Among other reasons, this is why Google wants Assistant to live on, at least on smart home devices.
Google said that Assistant in homes has helped "millions of households get more things done."
With Gemini, Google is "reimagining what your home assistant can do with just your voice."
With the power of Gemini's generative AI, Assistant on Home and Nest speakers and displays should be a lot smarter, because it should be able to "better understand you, so you can chat more naturally, and easily go back and forth or ask follow-up questions."
Google said that it's initially rolling out these improvements to Nest Aware subscribers in Public Preview later this 2024.